Hope
by Kicks-and-Giggles
Summary: Set after the return of Lucifer in Season 4, this is a series of one-shots about what characters are thinking and feeling, particularly when Castiel drops the bomb on the brothers that they will be working with the Charmed Ones to defeat Lucifer.


**Castiel**

_Dear Phoebe,_

_The world is about to end and I need to stop it—now._

_Let me explain: I am an Angel of the Lord and I was sent to Earth to find two boys who were destined for greatness, as my seniors explained to me. I did not know what this greatness was, nor did it matter. I carry out the orders I am given, so I found the boys and guided them to their destiny._

_Well… their destiny was to release the Devil from Hell. Lucifer is now walking amongst us, almost freely save for a vessel, and the only way to stop him is by allowing him to fight the Archangel Michael. There is the pickle—as you humans say—a battle between Michael and Lucifer would wipe out an entire hemisphere of the world if not more. I admit I have much to learn in the ways of listening to my own conscience, but I am assuming that allowing half of the world to be wiped out would not be 'good'. If Michael does not fight Lucifer, then Lucifer will eliminate all of the world._

_On top of that, allowing Michael to fight Lucifer would mean sacrificing the two boys whom I have grown very close to and consider to be my friends, I suppose._

_So what do I do? Do I listen to my superiors and let half the world and my two friends die? Or do I let the entire world get destroyed? The answer seems obvious to me, but I regret to say that I trust a human's judgment now more than I trust my own. That is why I am coming to you. You are, after all, the most trusted woman in all of San Francisco. I assume thousands of people adhere to your advice for some reason, though you are simply a woman and have made unwise decisions yourself in your life. But what do I know?_

_Yours Truly,_

_Castiel (Could you also explain why those who write to you must always sign with a fake name?)_

* * *

Spontaneous explosion is an odd sensation. It is not simply like they portray it in human cinema. One second, the person is standing or sitting, or staring into the face of their enemy. The next second—boom—they blow apart into a million little pieces. It is actually a bit more painful than that. After all, spontaneous combustion is not like tripping or getting a paper cut. A human body is held together with complex science and physical phenomena that is in perfect sync with the rest of the universe's rules and regulations. Imagine the amount of pressure it would take to make that explode. Now imagine the pain. It would be like forcing an elephant down your esophagus. Admittedly, that pain only lasts for a few seconds, but those seconds seemed to stretch into an eternity for me.

Chuck placed his hand on my shoulder in a show of human comradeship. I turned to look at him, wondering what he was worried about. He was the prophet, after all. Raphael was not coming to kill him, so Chuck could not possibly be afraid. Was it empathy, perhaps?

Aah, human emotion was too complex to understand. Sometimes I wish they would just say what they were thinking instead of gritting their jaw or looking at me with soulful eyes. Sam and Dean were particularly good at that. They expected me to understand everything that they were thinking. Human beings, especially the Winchesters, were infants at times.

Okay, fine, most of the time.

Perhaps they mistook me for a mind-reader. Yes, Angels have the power to read minds, but we are forbidden from doing so under penalty of swift smiting. I heard it was one of God's own rules. He had created the humans to have free thought, after all, so how could He allow us to use their thought against their will? Of course, some of us found ways around that—like Lucifer, who often preys on others' minds to get what he wants.

Lucifer… I hoped Dean would be able to stop Sam before it was too late. I hoped I would survive this encounter with Raphael by some miracle. I hoped Chuck would have the decency to not confuse me at the moment with his human emotions. I may have been calm and assured of my destiny—fearless, even, of my imminent death at Raphael's hands—but that did not mean I had the energy to spare to decipher his thoughts.

He seemed to understand for he removed his hand from my shoulder, albeit rather awkwardly. I returned my gaze to the window. The light shining through was getting brighter and brighter with each passing second. I could translate what sounded like a high-pitched squealing to Chuck to be my big brother's war cry. The ground shook like a thousand horses were charging towards us.

That's when I felt the pressure. Let me tell you now: eating a whole elephant is a _bad_ idea.

What's worse is vomiting the elephant out. Hmm… perhaps that's not the best way to explain it. Let me explain it this way: a body that explodes under pressure can be put back together by the reversal of that pressure. That does not mean removing the initial pressure. It means inverting it. So whatever pressure one feels when exploding, they feel the _same_ pressure while being put back together. Even worse, when you explode, you only feel the pain until your senses give out. When you're put back together, you don't get the luxury of _dying_ to numb the pain. You _have_ to feel it… for a long time. So my rebirth? It was not all that pleasant. Pleasantly _surprising_, most certainly, but not physically pleasant.

Angel's minds work in a curious way, very similar to the mind of a human with Asperger's syndrome. We are oversensitive to the world. We _see_ every human being's voice, every bird's screech, every leaf's rustle, and every wind's howl. We feel the textures of different colors. We hear the difference between a grain of sand and a spool of thread. The only way to make sense of anything—no, _everything_—in the universe overwhelming our senses is to compartmentalize. We quickly learn to push everything into its place in our minds and focus on the one thing that will keep us sane.

And that is what I did with the pain. I pushed it into its place and focused on something else. If you ask me now, I will tell you that I do not remember the pain and I would not be lying to you. I _can_ remember the pain, I simply choose not to.

The thing I focused on to keep my sanity is Lucifer. The instant that I was whole once more, I could sense his presence in the universe. It was like—how do I put this so it makes sense to a human?—rolling in a nest of stinging nettles… naked, then bathing with lime juice—no!—_hot_ lime juice.

I am not very good at explaining things to humans, so perhaps I will simply invoke you to imagine the most painful experience in the world that does not actually kill or paralyze you. Feeling Lucifer's presence in the universe is probably at least ten times worse than what you just imagined. So it was not a difficult task to shrug off the pain of my rebirth.

So Dean had failed in stopping Sam from resurrecting Lucifer—albeit unknowingly. I could practically hear the Angels laughing in Heaven. _'Nice try, Castiel_,_' _they say. _'But you just made a fool of yourself for nothing! Destiny won out in the end.' _I would agree with them and discontinue this fool's errand I am on if it were not for the single word that rang through my head after my rebirth, nearly drowning out Lucifer's presence.

_Halliwell_.

* * *

**Author's Note: So, this was previously going to be the beginning of a story, but I struggled to pull the plot together. Nonetheless, I really like this part of it and a couple of others too from the story, so I think I'm going to post a few chapters of the story-"one-shots" that are just the set-up of a story from different POVs. Point is that Cas and the brothers go to the Halliwells for help and we're getting snippets of what each character is thinking...?**

**Anyways, hope you like it! Please drop a review with your thoughts!**


End file.
